NPR Project Song Moby & Kelli Scarr

Despite being given only 48 hours to complete a song, Moby and his collaborator Kelli Scarr completed theirs in one day. And it’s not something without some frills!

I love watching these videos. They give you a great sense of how you can use elements to create songs you may have had no intention of writing. It’s also a terrific way to develop a tool/process for yourself to get the muse to show up.

Because Moby’s writing with a collaborator, you get to see the exchange, compromise and how the lyrics evolved based on the story they’re trying to tell. There’s an interesting juxtaposition between the dark direction Moby is going, and the light Kelli sees as the salvation of the story.

You can hear how the selection of the photography drove the music and lyric, and Moby sums up his creative process for this particular song by paraphrasing a sculpture: “I just chip away everything that doesn’t look like the thing I’m trying to represent.”

Project Song Moby & Kelly Scarr’s “Gone To Sleep”

They also had time to give a ‘Tiny Desk’ concert to the NPR staff with so much time left over!